Church leaders speak out against immigration sweeps / Arrests, deportations in Santa Cruz area part of national drive

Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, September 14, 2006

Leaders of four different religious faiths spoke out Wednesday near Santa Cruz on behalf of families of scores of immigration violators deported last week as controversy continued over federal immigration sweeps that have netted thousands of people since May.

In Operation Return to Sender, federal authorities have arrested 24,000 people nationally, 2,000 of them in Northern California, and deported 6,800 people.

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The arrests targeted individuals, said Timothy Aitken, deputy director of the agency's detention and removal office in San Francisco. He said the agency doesn't do random sweeps.

About one-third of those arrested nationally -- and one-fifth of those picked up in Northern California last week -- have criminal records. The rest either had ignored deportation orders issued by immigration judges or were "collateral arrests" -- people picked up on immigration charges while agents were seeking specific fugitives.

"We're trying to put integrity back in the immigration process," said Aitken. "You need to comply with the law, or you may find someone knocking at your door and you'll get deported."

Of the people arrested last week, 42 had ignored deportation orders, and the remaining 65 were illegal immigrants the agents happened to encounter. Most were Mexican citizens, but a few came from El Salvador, Guatemala and India. As of Wednesday, 93 had been deported, said Aitken, who leads Northern California's three fugitive operations teams, which are among 45 such teams across the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects to add seven more teams by the end of the year, according to Lori Haley, an agency spokeswoman. The agency estimates there are more than 590,000 "fugitive aliens" in the country, including 29,000 in Northern California.

The religious leaders who spoke out Wednesday acknowledged that the government has a right to enforce immigration law. But they said enforcement can tear apart families in which some members are illegal and others are U.S. citizens.

"It is clear that we have reached a point where we need legislation that will produce a viable path to citizenship for undocumented persons residing in our nation and one (law) that protects the integrity of families and the safety of children," Roman Catholic Bishop Sylvester Ryan said at a press conference at the Resurrection Catholic Community Church in Aptos.

Stacy Tolchin, a San Francisco immigration attorney representing two children whose parents were deported to Mexico, criticized the operation as much more aggressive than in the past.

"Don't deport them the same day," she said. "Give them access to counsel. You're ripping them away from their families. It's really malicious."

The increase in immigration enforcement inside the United States as well as at the border comes as Congress has stalled on revamping the nation's immigration system.

President Bush has failed to win support from conservatives in his own party for a guest worker program and a path to legal status for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Some observers said the current crackdown is an effort by the Bush administration to prove it is tough on enforcing immigration law.

Michael Cutler, a former immigration agent in New York now associated with the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington that supports tighter restrictions on immigration, said a better name for the current effort would be "Operation Backrub."

"The administration has administered warm milk and a backrub to the American people to inspire a false sense of confidence," he said. "The president has an agenda, which appears to be open up the border between the U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. and Canada. ... He's been doing this to be able to sell his package."

Immigration enforcement has generally focused on policing the border, but that alone cannot reduce illegal immigration, said Deborah Meyers, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Boosting enforcement inside the country -- removing criminals and people who have already had their day in court -- is a sensible next step, she said. But it too is limited.

"You can deport the people, but if employers are still hiring illegal workers, you're not going to solve the problem," she said. "They're tackling the symptom of the problem, which is that people are here. But are they tackling the employment magnet? Are they tackling the fact that there's no way for these workers to come legally? It's not clear."

This story has been corrected since it appeared in print editions.

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